Our members can recommend beginner textbooks, help you out with obscure classical vocabulary, and tell you where to get the best street food in Xi'an. And we're friendly about it too. Have a look at , or for something specific. We hope you'll join us. One problem I have is that the teacher goes over the answers to the exercises very fast, and doesn't give us enough time to write them down. Now, studying for exams, I'd like to know what the answers are, so that I have a good set of examples, etc. Does anyone know where I might be able to find the answers online? Learn 2289 Chinese Characters in 90 Days with a Unique Flash Card System. Tips and strategies for how to learn Chinese more efficiently Understand Chinese inside any Windows application, website or PDF. All Chinese grammar, organised by level, all in one place. So, was the answer key found online, or offline? Is it a wise idea to try Boya without a teacher from the beginner level? I heard that Boya's vocabulary is full of rare words - how bad is this issue at the elementary and semi-intermediate levels, in comparison with NPCR 1-4? How about grammar explanations and translations into English, are they an issue? I see that even in the beginner's books there is very little English, but maybe that's OK or even good? Sorry for asking dumb questions, but I am confused trying to choose between Boya and NPCR. Bought it before coming to Shanghai. At least not yet. IC translates the dialogs and all example sentences in the grammar sections. I saw too many negative comments towards Integrated Chinese, and also, they are quite expensive. Boya is the cheapest of all, here in the U. My only concern is that Boya may be too hard for a beginner' self-study. I decided to buy Boya and try the Starter and Pre-Intermediate volumes. Anyway, I would like to have the answer key for Boya, but if not, that's fine too. Are you aware of any Boya workbooks, similar to NPCR workbooks, or other materials that are used together with Boya? Thanks for the comments! Is it a wise idea to try Boya without a teacher from the beginner level? I heard that Boya's vocabulary is full of rare words - how bad is this issue at the elementary and semi-intermediate levels, in comparison with NPCR 1-4? How about grammar explanations and translations into English, are they an issue? I see that even in the beginner's books there is very little English, but maybe that's OK or even good? Sorry for asking dumb questions, but I am confused trying to choose between Boya and NPCR. My impressions are as follows: Good points 1. Articles and stories focus more on Chinese culture and history. Vocabularly by and large has examples to reinforce usage in Chinese 5. Large range of exercises to reinforce grammatical and vocab usage. BOYA textbooks starts from Beginners right up to Advanced, and contains audio disc at no extra cost Bad points 1. BOYA is entirely in Chinese - including grammatical explanations 2. BOYA does not contain answers to exercises at the back 3. Audio is poor e. Sound quality is average at best, and does not contain exercises or enough pauses. I've heard that translation can be quite sketchy in the Advanced books I enjoy reading and am interested in Chinese history and culture - especially because such articles are generally more complex and help reinforce grammatical points and vocab usage. Also the articles are fairly lengthy e. After CIS I was bored stiff of the format, but especially the dialogues. That said, CIS and NPCR format and production quality are streets ahead of BOYA. As much as I've enjoyed - and continue to enjoy - BOYA, I would not recommed using BOYA as one's sole form of structured learning for self-study straight off the bat. If you have used BOYA in conjunction with a teacher and are used to the format, and have a good grammar book for grammatical explantions like a good dictionary, essential components for learning IMO , and providing you can live with the limitations then BOYA may be a suitable alternative. When I first started to use BOYA, the format and everything in Chinese was something akin to culture shock - especially since I had to look-up every 3rd word in a dictionary! It's now down to every 10th word or so. In summary, I feel BOYA focuses and provides for improving a different range of skills reading comprehension and an expansive vocabularly ; however, there are a number of negative points that canot be ignored that are big enough to potentially disuade someone wishing to use BOYA for self-study. I'd would recommend a different set of textbooks for structured learning for beginning - elementary levels if self-study , and switch to BOYA once your Chinese is at a sufficient level where you feel comfortable with no English at all. Unfortunately, I believe that the gap between beginners and elementary is too big. Whilst I believe that the Green BOYA beginners textbooks provide stroke orders, dialogues in English at the back and grammatical explanations in English, the Blue BOYA textbook dispenses with such hand-holding. Fine for Intermediate level, but switching from Green to Blue is a chasm. Also, I don't believe that BOYA provides any teacher guides whatsoever. Thank you very much, putonghua73, your comments are amazing and very helpful! I'd like to answer in kind, but no time yet... Probably there is just no such thing as an easy textbook of Chinese. The truly best sound, though, is the one I overheard today in a conference room where several beautiful Chinese girls were chatting and laughing, and I just wanted to listen and listen forever... Protected from shame by a wall, I would open my mouth and eehhh, eehhh - nothing comes out... Anyway, I received the BOYAs, but I'd like to learn some characters first to make it easier. Do you think that the main problem with BOYA is the characters? For NPCR, I'd like to get the Second Edition since it's just about to come out; also cheaper that way.
